'BJP can make tea seller a PM, hawker a prez and hut-dweller a minister'

Pratap Sarangi, who contested the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls from Balasore Parliamentary Constituency of Odisha and won the seat, was inducted in the new cabinet as the Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries and MSME. He hails from a humble background and leads a simple life.

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): Member of Parliament from Odisha's Balasore Lok Sabha seat, Pratap Sarangi, hailed the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday for being non-partisan and a political entity where a tea seller can become a Prime Minister, a newspaper hawker a president and a man living in a hut can get an opportunity to serve the people as their representative.

Sarangi was made the Minister of State in the Government of India for Animal Husbandry, Dairying, and Fisheries, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises after winning in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

"This is what is special about the BJP. A tea seller can become the Prime Minister, a newspaper hawker can become a president and a man living in a hut can get the opportunity to serve the people as their representative," said Sarangi while speaking at a function in Bhubaneshwar, where he and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan were felicitated by the party on their first visit to Odisha after taking over as Union ministers.

Asserting that he never craved for a ministerial berth, the Union minister said, "I never craved for a ministerial berth. It came on its own, bringing a bigger responsibility on my shoulder to serve the people."

Describing, the sequence of events that led to him taking oath as a Union minister on May 30 as an incredible experience, the 64-year-old BJP leader said, "Amit Shah ji called me twice but I could not speak to him as my phone was with someone else. When I called back, he asked me to join the swearing-in ceremony in the evening."

Sarangi, who received the loudest applause during the swearing-in ceremony of the new cabinet ministers, has a chequered history.

The minister, former leader of the Bajrang Dal and a part of the hardline rightwing group, has been accused of leading a Hindu mob which lynched Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two children in 1999.